One of the key determinants of the “quality” of a neighbourhood is the extent to which owners maintain their properties. Much has been written about the impact of neighbourhood blight or the physically rejuvenating impact of gentrification. To better understand why some neighbourhoods are thriving, and others not, a critical variable that has seen little exploration is the type of tenure. This thesis, focused mostly on data from the City of Rochester NY, comparing absentee landlords, resident landlords and owner-occupiers, looking for differences in the level of maintenance of residential properties. Using a procedure developed by the author, every house in Rochester, Buffalo, and Syracuse containing 1-6 units was assessed, creating a quantitative analysis that is both more current, and on a much larger scale than previous work. Findings mostly confirmed observations and theories in the literature, but there were a number of significant differences. The key observation within Rochester was that, regardless of geographic scale, absentee owners consistently took the worst care of their properties, followed by resident landlords and then owner-occupiers. Further, size and type of absentee landlord mattered. Tenure was found to be the driving force in predicting maintenance outcomes, compounded by variables such as property values and race. Evidence from Buffalo and Syracuse indicated that findings may be generalizable, at least for declining industrial cities. / Thesis / Master of Applied Science (MASc)

Ph.D. Thesis ABSTRACT Mgr. Veronika Kristková, LL.M., 2013 Position of victims of human rights violations in international law with focus on victims of serious violations of human rights and international humantiarian law This work focuses within the broad theme of " Position of the victims of the human rights violations in international law" on victims of serious human rights violations and serious violations of international humanitarian law (hereinafter only serious violations). The author decided to focus on the victims of serious violations because the research revealed that while the rights of victims of human rights violations are in general relatively settled in theory as well in practice of international law, the rights of the victims of serious violations is an area, which raises several doctrinal questions, encountered rapid development in recent years and continues to develop. Analysis of the rights of the victims of serious violations necessary must be based on the rights of the victims of human rights violations in general, which serves as a baseline for the analysis of the rights of the victims of serious violations. Only in comparison with the general rights of the victims of human rights violations the specificities of the rights of the victims of serious violations stand up. First the work...

On October 1, 1990 the Rwandan Patriotic Front launched a war from and with the support of the Republic of Uganda against Rwanda. This war was accompanied by unspeakable violations of International Humanitarian Law. Both conflicting parties violated the basic rules protecting the civilian population in situations of armed conflicts. The United Nations Security Council, acting under Chapter VII of its Charter, passed resolution 955 of November 8, 1994 establishing the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda to prosecute alleged responsible of such violations. This study investigates the background of the ICTR and questions the nature of the conflict that prompted the Security Council to establish another ad hoc international criminal tribunal after the one established for the former Yugoslavia. It further inquires into its jurisprudence and reflects critically on the ICTR's approach to serious violations of IHL under Article 3 Common to the Geneva Conventions and Additional Protocol II. / Jurisprudence / LL. M. (Law)

Facilitating forgiveness: an NLP approach to forgiving is an attempt at uncovering features of the blocks that prevent people to forgive. These blocks to forgiveness can be detected in the real life situations of the six individuals who told me their stories. The inner thoughts, feelings and the subsequent behaviour that prevented them from forgiving others is clearly uncovered in their stories. The facilitation process highlights the features that created the blocks in the past thus preventing forgiveness to occur. The blocks with their accompanying features reveal what needs to be clarified or changed in order to eventually enable the hurt individuals to forgive those who have hurt them. The application of discourse analysis to the stories of hurt highlights the links between the real life stories of the individuals within their contexts with regard to unforgiveness to the research findings of the existing body of knowledge, thereby creating a complexly interwoven comprehensive understanding of the individuals' thoughts, feelings, and behaviours in conjunction with their developmental phases within their socio-cultural contexts. Neuro-linguistic-programming (NLP) is the instrument with which forgiving is facilitated in the six individuals who expressed their conscious desire to forgive, because they were unable to do so on their own. Their emotions had the habit of keeping them in a place in which they were forced to relive the hurtful event as if it were happening in the present. Arresting the process of reliving negative emotions requires a new way of being in this world. The assumption that this can be learnt is based on the results from a previous study, in which forgiveness was uncovered by means of the grounded theory approach as a cognitive process (Von Krosigk, 2000). The results from the previous research in conjunction with the results and insights from this research study are presented in the form of a grounded theory model of forgiveness. / Psychology / D. Litt. et Phil. (Psychology)

Consumers have begun to take a more proactive approach to their healthcare by accessing pharmaceutical companies Websites to obtain health and drug information, support groups, rebates, coupons, as well as free drug trials. In exchange for these benefits, companies require consumers to voluntarily disclose information. However, research has shown that consumers continue to be concerned about how their information is managed, used, and distributed by companies, especially if accessed via the Web. To date, there has been limited empirical research to examine the actual online practices of companies when it comes to privacy, especially those of pharmaceutical companies. Using Delphi expert panel process, the components of a benchmarking index were identified to examine the documented and actual online practices of 100 Website registrations with pharmaceutical companies. The evolution for the development of an index to measure the personal information privacy violations of pharmaceutical companies is presented. Second, empirical evidence is provided regarding the magnitude of voluntary adherence to the Fair Information Practices (FIPs) by pharmaceutical companies based upon the personal information privacy violations. The results revealed that companies with headquarters in Europe had fewer personal information privacy violations than those in Asia, UK, and the US. Moreover, the results indicate that fewer personal information privacy violations occur for chronic conditions than for non-chronic conditions, as well as fewer violations occur with Website registrations for updates than for discounts. Finally, both Europe and UK demonstrated more overall adherence to FIPs than the US and Asia. This suggests that self-regulation may not be sufficient, while more enforcement may be necessary to decrease personal information privacy violations.

Diese Dissertation untersucht ökonomische Sanktionen im Kontext der empirischen politischen Ökonomie. Obwohl sie aus drei unabhängigen Kapiteln besteht, ist das übergeordnete, verbindende Ziel dieser Forschungsarbeit ein Gesamtverständnis der Motivation und der Effekte von Sanktionen anzubieten, getragen von der generellen Idee der Wechselwirkungen zwischen ökonomischen Anreizen und politischen Zielen. Meine Forschung zeichnet die ökonomischen Restriktionen ab, mit denen sich die politischen Entscheidungsträger im Bereich der internationalen Beziehungen auseinandersetzen. / This dissertation explores economic sanctions in an empirical political economy context. While consisting of three independent papers, it aims at providing a holistic understanding of the motivation and effects of sanctions in particular, and the interplay between economic incentives and political goals in general. My research delineates the economic constraints that policymakers encounter in the field of international relations.

Questa tesi è costruita sulle seguenti domande: una società che ha vissuto gravi e sistematiche violazioni dei diritti umani come può 'chiudere i conti' con il passato e perseguire giustizia e riconciliazione? Come rigenerare i legami sociali infranti? Quale ruolo giocano vittime e perpetratori? Questi problemi sono studiati, in concreto, nell’esperienza di El Salvador. Tra i profili sociologici possibili, la tesi si concentra sulla 'domanda di giustizia' delle vittime. Il primo capitolo fornisce un inquadramento storico-sociale. Il secondo ha per oggetto la giustizia di transizione; l’analisi teorica generale considera i seguenti modelli: giudiziario, amnistiale, delle commissioni verità e la "Truth and Reconciliation Commission" (TRC) sudafricana. La TRC è presentata come un’esperienza che attinge e supera le opzioni precedenti, mostrando le potenzialità della "restorative justice". Il terzo e il quarto capitolo tornano sul caso salvadoregno e considerano gli attori (nazionali e internazionali) e i problemi sociali della transizione del Paese centroamericano. La ricerca svolta sul campo ha permesso di mettere in luce il valore generativo degli sforzi con cui parte della società civile salvadoregna ha cercato di fronteggiare la latitanza dello Stato rispetto al diritto alla verità e alla giustizia. Il quinto capitolo, avvalendosi della voce delle vittime intervistate con il metodo delle 'storie di vita', riflette sul rapporto fra trauma e legame sociale. L’ultimo capitolo presenta gli strumenti metodologici utilizzati per la ricerca empirica. / This thesis is based on the following questions: can a society that has experienced severe and systematic human rights violations be reconciled with the past and pursue justice and reconciliation? How can broken social connections be repaired? What are the roles of victims and oppressors? These problems have been studied analyzing the experience of El Salvador. Among the possible sociological profiles, the thesis focuses on the Salvadorian victims' "demand for justice". The first chapter gives an historical-social overview. The second chapter analyzes the transitional justice. The general theoretical analysis takes into account the following models: judiciary, that related to amnesty, the model of the "truth commissions", and finally the South African "Truth and Reconciliation Commission" (TRC). The TRC is presented as an experience that draws on and surpasses the previous alternatives, showing the potential of restorative justice. The third and fourth chapters return to the Salvadorean case and take into account the agents (national and international) and the social problems connected to the transition El Salvador has undergone. Research in this field sheds light on the relevance of the efforts made by some parts of the Salvadorean civil society to deal with the absence of the government with respect to promoting the right of truth and justice. The fifth chapter, corroborated by interviews with victims analysed using the method of the "history of life", reflects on the connection between trauma and social bonds. The last chapter presents the methodological tools used during the empirical research.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Universität, Frankfurt am Main, 2006. / Material type: Dissertations. Includes bibliographical references (p. 283-317).

This study evaluated the effectiveness of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (SATRC), using the theoretical and conceptual framework of the five pillars of transitional justice. Chitsike (2012) identified the five Pillars of Transitional Justice that the study uses. For that reason, Truth-Seeking and Truth-Telling, Trials and Tribunals, Reparations, Institutional Reform and Memorialisation are the Five Pillars of Transitional Justice that this study elected to use as the conceptual and theoretical framework. The Five Pillars of Transitional Justice that were delineated by Boraine (2005) are referred to for analytical purposes in the study. Methodologically, the study assumes a qualitative posture. Literature study through content analysis that uses description and exploration is deployed to make interpretation of the used literature. This study notes that each one of the pillars of transitional justice has its recommendations and limitations, and the pillars are much more enriched and enriching when applied in complementarity to each other rather than in isolation. The SATRC process also had its achievements and limitations, and its popularity was based on political impressions rather than concrete transitional justice achievements on the ground, in the view of the present study. Furthermore, it appears to the present study that more time is needed for much more reliable evaluations of the effectiveness of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) to be made, some of its successes and limitations will take many years and or even decades to manifest because at the end of the day, TRCs are historical process and not events. / Political Sciences / M.A. (Politics)

Text in English / While intergenerational transmission of trauma has been widely studied, there is a paucity of literature on intergenerational humiliation. Furthermore, humiliation is regarded as a significant feature of transgenerational transmission of trauma and revenge production. Therefore, the present study aimed to contribute to addressing this paucity and to explore and understand intergenerational humiliation as experienced by 20 children and grandchildren of victims of apartheid-era gross human rights violations. Conceptually, historical trauma theory framed the study. A hermeneutic phenomenological methodology was used to achieve the aims. Through purposive-criterion sampling, data was collected and analysed using interpretive phenomenological analysis. Results show that the consequences of intergenerational humiliation are varied as feelings of hurt and loss perpetuate through the generations. Although positive influences counter these feelings within a generation, they remain alive in memories. This has implications on ethnic and racial inter-group relations as transitional societies such as South Africa seek social cohesion. / Psychology / M.A. (Psychology (Research Consultation))